Archaeozoological research on vertebrates in Central Europe with special reference to the medieval period

This paper is the outcome of a lecture held at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. It provides a summary in English of the archaeozoological research work which has been carried out in Central Europe during the last 30 years, with special reference to material from medieval times. It is shown that a thorough zoological analysis of bones from excavations provides much information for historical interpretation. Not only was the ratio of wild and domestic animals or of the different species of interest, but also the age and sex structure of the population by taking the function of the site into consideration. Some observations on animal teeth gave indications of distinctive handicrafts. Cut marks on cervical vertebrae of horse skeletons found as grave goods from early medieval times were considered in connection with beliefs and juridical conceptions of that time.     

新发现的古代瓷器铭文款识考辨

文章对" 色瓶"、" 公用"等几款新发现的古代瓷器铭文作了分析和考证,为中国瓷器发展史补充了珍贵的资料。     

Cut Mark Cluster Geometry and Equifinality in Replicated Early Stone Age Butchery

Early Stone Age cut marks created during tool‐assisted carnivory potentially offer inferences into hominin butchery behaviour and access to complete or defleshed carcasses. Actualistic butchery trials of 16 goat and cow half‐carcasses were completed by an experienced butcher with replicated Oldowan tools to investigate how the geometric organisation of cut mark clusters reflects flake versus core tool use and bulk muscle versus scrap defleshing. A cluster of cut marks is defined as a series of adjacent cut mark striations that occur at an anatomical location and are bounded by unmarked cortical surface. Tool type and butchery action were predicted to differentially mark certain long bone portions and influence cluster attributes. Moulds of 613 cut mark clusters were photographed and measured using ImageJ software (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA) for cluster area, cut mark count, median cut mark length and standard deviation of cut mark length and angle. Analysis suggests the following results: (i) cluster attributes are correlated;(ii) changes in cluster geometry are related to increasing cut mark count and length but not tool type or defleshed muscle amount; (iii) large clusters occur on large animals; and (iv) long bone midshaft portions are cut‐marked during both bulk and scrap muscle defleshing. Analysis of 179 cut mark clusters on long bone shafts of sizes 1–4 mammals from three Okote member assemblages at Koobi Fora, Kenya, shows that archaeological clusters have a similar number of marks when compared with experimental clusters but are significantly smaller, have shorter median marks and include less deviation in mark length and angle. Archaeological clusters corroborate that increasing area is positively correlated with cut mark count, median mark length and standard deviation of mark length and angle. A quantitative inferential model that links cut mark cluster geometry to tool type or the amount of muscle defleshed is not supported by these data. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Las estrategias del juego áulico en las comedias mitológicas de Calderón de la Barca

This article studies the particular case of the mythological plays of Calderón that form a cohesive and recognizable set of works in certain circumstances. This kind of comedy is modulated by specific issues of reception, under the dominant global principle of playfulness, through the mechanisms of admiratio, and different strategies of courtly game that can be summarized in four basic areas: conventional comicity, the writing of a theater full of sensorismo, the importance of the intellect games, and finally, the strategies to point identity marks of a particular social group.     

Peck-Marked Vessels from the San José Market Street Chinatown: A Study of Distribution and Significance

Ceramic bowls and plates with Chinese characters pecked into their surfaces are documented on almost every nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chinatown site in California. Typically, these vessels are said to bear marks of ownership, and further analysis has been uncommon. Given the socio-political atmosphere surrounding Chinese immigration and labor during this time period, as well as the cultural relevance of this marking practice, it is the author's belief that this explanation is incomplete. Through analysis of archaeological materials from the Market Street Chinatown in San José, California, this paper explores the possibility that Chinese immigrants were using and hybridizing the familiar Chinese cultural practice of marking vessels to aid in creating an environment within the Chinatown that was both more comfortable and more livable.     

康熙朝雕漆初探

康熙朝有无雕漆,一直悬而未决。本文通过对故宫博物院所藏7件雕漆作品的造型、漆色、雕工、装饰纹样、款识等多方面的分析,认为康熙朝有雕漆,并推断为苏州制造。     

Recent archaeobotanical investigations into the range and abundance of Neolithic crop plants in settlements around Lake Constance and in Upper Swabia (south-west Germany) in relation to cultural influences

An overview is presented of the cultivated plants found at Lake Constance (Bodensee) and in the Upper Swabia region including the Federsee (Baden-Württemberg/south-west Germany) between 4000 and 2400 cal BC. This work relates to recent archaeobotanical investigations of the waterlogged sediments of 30 different Neolithic lakeside settlements. These sites provided almost 500,000 crop plant macro-remains, excellently preserved under waterlogged conditions. Taken in conjunction with other previously collected samples from the region, they provide an added dimension to the understanding of crop plant development in the lakeshore Neolithic in south-west Germany.     

Variety in cereal cultivation in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in relation to environmental conditions

The objective of this paper is to assess the relationship between the cereals cultivated in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages (ca. 1250–400 BC) within the area of the present-day Czech Republic, and their environmental settings. The various charred caryopses of cereal species represented in the archaeobotanical assemblages from 35 archaeological sites differ, especially in the proportion of wheat and barley. The cereal assemblages were compared regarding site altitude, weather conditions, soils and soil productivity. The most important environmental variable influencing the choice of a particular crop seemed to be altitude which is correlated with other variables such as the length of growing season, mean annual temperature, soil quality etc. Although the ecological requirements of cereals cultivated in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages are not known, they presumably thrived under similar conditions to present-day species/varieties, and the strategy of past crop husbandry was based on similar principles as today, e.g. flexible adaptation to local environmental conditions, in an effort to achieve optimal yields and reduce the danger of crop failure.     

A cautionary note on the use of captive carnivores to model wild predator behavior: a comparison of bone modification patterns on long bones by captive and wild lions

A study with wild lions in Tarangire National Park (Tanzania) and with captive lions in Cabárceno Reserve (Spain) has yielded two different bone modification patterns, probably as a result of the differences in environmental contexts. Captive lions have modified bones more intensively, both in the form of total number of tooth-marked bones and number of tooth marks per tooth-marked bone, probably because of stereotypic behaviors. This emphasizes the importance of environmental contexts to understand carnivore behavior and their resulting bone modification patterns. It also shows that analogical models based on experiments carried out with captive carnivores may be biased and inadequate as proxies for wild carnivore bone modification behaviors.